As I have written before, roughly three quarters of all submissions to the Journal of Economic Psychology are currently desk-rejected. Roughly half or more of those which are not desk-rejected, however, are returned to author(s). Wait, what?
We live in times of increased inattention. We also live in times of reviewer scarcity. Acting as a reviewer is a purely altruistic act. So, as a courtesy to reviewers, at JoEP we plainly refuse to send a manuscript out for refereeing if it is not in a polished-enough state, which ranges from polished language and a scarcity of typos to proper formatting and a bunch of statistical standards (all of which are described in the Guide for Authors). Also, as my Co-Editor Eldad told me yesterday, we would be doing authors a disservice if we sent out their papers for refereeing in a less-than-optimal state, as papers would not get their best shot then.
This means that we often get papers which we do not want to desk-reject, but which are clearly not quite ready. What to do, what to do? Return to author! This is a special possibility which allows us to, well, return the paper to the author(s) with a quick barrage of pointers and requests. The authors receive an email with the subject “Please resubmit…” and our spontaneous comments.
To my surprise, there are several misunderstandings about this.
First, getting such an email is actually good news. Needless to say, we do not do that for papers which are clear desk-rejections. What would be the point of that? If you get an email like that, it literally means that we are interested, but we would like you to polish the paper a bit more or solve some problems before we actually start handling it. A desk rejection after that might still happen, but its likelihood (unless you refuse to make the adjustments or do a poor job) is greatly reduced. So, rejoice! (wink) I actually had an author get angry at this and tell me that he/she had invested “two hours” at my request “in a paper that can still be desk-rejected.” I could only shake my head at that. (In case you are interested, I did forward it to an associate editor after that, but I am human, so imagine my initial reaction at that message. OK, moving on.)
Second, a “Please resubmit…,” return-to-author message is not a “revise and resubmit.” So rejoice, but not too much. You have no reviewer reports. No Associate Editor or Reviewer has seen your paper yet. Nobody has read it in detail. That is the crux of it. A “return to author” is telling you that the paper is not ready to have people read it, and that you should put an effort to improve it, following the pointers provided in the email. A few times, I’ve had authors provide an extensive “Answer to the Editor” describing the adjustments in response to what is just a quick salvo of comments and pointers. There is, in general, no need for that. Just make the adjustments and submit again.
Third, most of the time the “return to author” emails I have been sending could have been avoided if the authors had simply read the Guide for Authors before submitting. Most of the problems are quite standard, and they are addressed there: too many typos, poor language, awkward formatting, wrong statistical thresholds, lack of a power analysis, etc, etc. It’s simple: We do have standards and policies in place, which are not a lot of work to follow. So please follow them when submitting to our journal. Thank you!
Last but not least, getting a return-to-author is a warning. As a game theorist, I recognize the temptation that arises here: why pay attention and create polished manuscripts, if the editor will get back to you with a list of pointers? Well, it’s simple. As I have said before, if we see too many problems in an initial submission, even if they are superficial, beyond a certain threshold we have to conclude that it is not worth the effort of the editors and reviewers, so the manuscript will be desk-rejected (in which case we will not provide the detailed feedback on all the problems, but just the main reason). So if you aim to avoid a desk rejection, it’s just a matter of investing a little bit more of effort to avoid a return-to-author too. But if you risk a return-to-author, you do risk a desk rejection (which is final at JoEP). Not worth the risk.
Carlos' Ramblings 